How our News Correspondents Celebrate the Holidays

A WHUS News Department Feature

Kate Ariano | News Correspondent

My favorite holiday tradition is without a doubt reading The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. My sister and I used to do it when we were the youngest ones in the family, while the rest of my cousins and aunts and uncles would sit around us and then pretend to watch us read. Now that there are even smaller kids and we’ve grown up, they are the ones reading and telling everyone to be quiet and listen to them. I guess being a diva runs in the family!

Alex Buss | News Correspondent and Photographer

My favorite holiday tradition is watching “A Muppet Christmas Carol” with my family. It’s been a tradition to watch it together for more than a decade, and we always make an event out of it — popcorn, turning off the lights in the living room so the only light is from our TV and the Christmas tree. For a while, I thought “A Muppet Christmas Carol” was super cheesy, but after I got over that, I really love how wholesome and silly it is.

Daniela Doncel | News Director and Husky Nation News Producer

Most of the traditional fesitivies my family and I take part in happen before Christmas Eve. In Colombia, we take part in what’s called a “Novena” where for nine days before Christmas, we stand around the nativity scene my mom and I put up and we pray. I especially love the part where we get to sing, clap and play with instruments like the maracas. Usually, close family and friends in Colombia change the house in which the novena takes place each day, but in the U.S. my parents and I just do it amongst ourselves at home. On Christmas Eve, family friends come over to eat, then we wait until midnight to open presents. During the holidays, I also always watch “The Polar Express.”

LJ Karam | Photographer and Husky Nation News Host

My family doesn’t have any specific family traditions, but there’s so many of us that we only ever get to see each other a handful of times a year. That leads to massive gossip circles between my cousins and I. We always take our food off to a remote location and just sit together and tell each other everything we’ve found out about our family since the last time we’ve seen each other.

Kara Murray | News Correspondent and Husky Nation News Host

Every year, the host for Christmas Eve rotates between my mom and my aunt, but the traditions stay the same. My mom and I always bake cookies together. My brother and cousins play footbal every Christmas Day. My parents, brother and I exchange gifts on Christmas morning. Then, we visit my grandma’s place to exchange gifts with them along with my aunt and uncle. We all always watch “A Christmas Story” at least once.

Ally Urban | News Correspondent and Photographer

I’m Polish, so on Christmas Eve, we have “Wigilia” which is just a traditional gathering of the family to celebrate Christmas. The one big tradition of Wigilia night is that we–I don’t even know what this process is called–but we do a thing where we have big square wafers with nativity scenes on them. You take one of those and you walk around to your family members and you say ““Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia” (Merry Christmas in Polish). They take a little piece of your wafer and you take a piece of their wafer. That’s you wishing them well. On Wigilia, the whole family comes together so all the cousins are there and the breaking of the wafer is cool, plus it tastes good. Whenever there are leftovers, I eat them all. It’s a really cool tradition. It’s nice to have a different aspect of celebrating the holidays, like Christmas is a big thing but the Polish people do it slightly differently.